Digital versatile disc (DVD) is an emerging technology which due to its nature, requires extensive encryption in order to protect the data, such as a motion picture, against unauthorized copying. DVD is a specification for the content of video, audio and other compressed data to be used as playback video, audio and, for example, subtitle data by a DVD decoder. The DVD video data is specified in the moving picture experts group (MPEG) standard (ISO/IEC 13818-2). As well as being represented by the standard, the data is also encrypted for protection.
Encryption is achieved using the industry's content scrambling system (CSS), which produces an encrypted, encoded data stream for DVD playback. The data stream can be decrypted, for example, by hardware licensed to perform CSS decryption. Conventionally, CSS decryption occurs at a PCI card, which also conventionally includes MPEG decompression of the encrypted, encoded data signal.
A DVD PC system or player is manufactured under license of the DVD consortium to include a copy protect module to protect distribution of DVD data worldwide. This technology includes scrambling of data and the concept of DVD regions throughout the world. Each digital video disc includes data that determines in which of the various defined regions of the world that DVD will play. Each DVD player or PC system sold in a given region must only play digital video discs that are allowed to be played in that region. Currently, the global market is divided into six DVD regions and each digital video disc produced contains data representative of regional information where the disc can be played.
In view of the region-dependent nature of DVD PC systems, there would be commercial advantage to a global technique to update the PC software of different DVD systems sold in the various DVD regions of the world without negatively effecting the region-dependent nature of the DVD systems.